The Lindgren/Tryon Genealogy

Book excerpt: The revised edition of The Lindgren/Tryon Genealogy is leap forward as a family history. It carefully documents the often fascinating lives of both ordinary and extra-ordinary ancestors. The scope and extent of newly discovered forbearers is breathtaking. Beside an exhaustive Bibliography and Name Index, it also includes a new chapter on genetic origins. The first four chapters explore family roots over a wide swath of Europe and the Middle East. The time horizon of this family's story spans a breathtaking three and a half millennia, back to about 1525 BCE when a man named Cenna and a woman named Neferu, both in ancient Egypt, married. They would become the parents of Queen Tetisheri and the grandparents of Pharoah Sequenenre Tao II, the 5th Pharaoh of the 17th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. Through the intervening 128 generations the reader meets people leading both ordinary and extra ordinary lives: From farmers, tradesmen, poets, and professionals to one of the murderers of Bishop Beckett and seven Christian saints; from slaves to Kings and Emperors. Most were Christian, but many were Jewish, some Zoroastrian and still others sun worshipers - a few were probably Druids. The final chapter sketches the genetic context of the family history. This sketch runs from the Rift Valley of Africa at about 50,000 years ago to Southern Europe about 20,000 years ago. The earliest individuals in these lines, known only as Mitochondrial Eve and Eurasian-Adam, serve to place this family in the vast context of our evolving species.